KakaIru Fest Mini Bingo
by megyal
Summary: These are three unrelated drabbles/ficlets that were written for Kakairu Fest's Mini Bingo in Livejournal; we got a small bingo card, and I used the prompts 'Western', 'Wildcard' and 'Roman Empire' to get a diagonal bingo. They're all AU.
1. In A Strange Land

_Written for the Mini Bingo Round at KakaIru Fest on Livejournal; the prompt for this was 'Western'._

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Iruka walked behind his father, trying to keep up with his long stride. The dust of the road kicked up under his bare feet, and wisps of hair escaped from his ponytail to tickle the back of his neck. Despite the sweltering California morning, Iruka was so excited; his father had to pull him out of the way when a wagon rumbled past, because Iruka wasn't paying attention.

"Sorry!" Iruka said, gripping his father's arm. "I'm sorry, Father!"

"That's all right," his father answered. "But watch where you're going." He eyed the back of the carriage with a hard expression. "These people will not stop for us, remember that. We are strangers in a strange country."

Iruka nodded. Even though he had been born in his parents' homeland eight years ago, his earliest memories were of America, for his family had come here when he was only two. Sometimes he wondered when they would go back, but his father only shook his head when he asked. Now, they were on their way to welcome even more of their countrymen, and lead them back to the small colony.

"Do you think," he asked when they set off again, "that these people will work hard here? Like us?"

"I hope so," his father said. "But I have heard that a great warrior is among them. It is an honour to have the White Fang here in America!"

"The White Fang," Iruka said in wonderment. "He'll protect us from those men who always try to take the ripe fruits, Father? He'll stay in the fields with us?" While most of the Americans left their houses and lands in peace, and only met with them to buy their produce, there were a few idle men who claimed that the 'yeller skinned bastids' stole what was rightfully theirs. Iruka didn't know what a bastid was, and he didn't think he had yellow skin. He had perfectly normal skin. Besides, he did as much on the farm as anyone, so it made him upset: why did they want to take what the colony had worked so hard to grow?

"The White Fang is a powerful samurai," his father admonished. "We cannot expect him to work in the fields like us. It would not be right."

"Not to _work_," Iruka clarified with a grumble. "But he can stand there with his long sword, and chase them off!"

"Iruka!" his father said, but he was laughing a little. Iruka grinned up at him as they went down towards the small town, and even at this distance, Iruka saw the small crowd milling around near the general store. As they got closer, Iruka recognized some of the words they were speaking and looked up into their tired, wary faces.

"Welcome to America, Hatake-san," he heard his father say, and looked on in deep interest as his father offered a respectful bow to another man. Iruka looked up, and blinked at the man's pale hair and strange clothing. This must be the White Fang! Iruka tried to peer at the folds of his clothes, if he could see a sword.

"What are _you_ looking at?" someone else said, and Iruka noticed that there was a boy a little older than himself standing behind the White Fang. How strange! This boy had the same shock of odd-coloured hair like Hatake-san. Iruka had never seen such hair before, not even on the Americans...at least, not on the _young_ ones.

"Who are you?" he asked in the same tongue and his father tried to pinch some manners into him. The boy glared at him, and Iruka glared right back.

"Hello," the White Fang said when neither the boy nor Iruka made any move to greet each other. "You must be Iruka-kun. I am Hatake Sakumo, and this is my son, Kakashi."

"Why does his hair look like that?" Iruka asked, and the boy wrinkled his nose.

"Looks better than yours."

"Now, Kakashi," Sakumo-san said, putting a hand on Kakashi's bony shoulder. "You must make friends with Iruka. After all, we are strangers in a strange land."

"People say that a lot," Iruka confided. "But I can teach you English. It's easy."

"I'm smart," Kakashi said in bored tones, but his eyes were bright. "I can learn anything."

"Well," Iruka said with a grin. "Can you learn to stand in a field and chase off thieves and birds? You can be a scarecrow, you know."

Iruka's father and Sakumo-san chuckled. Kakashi went back to glaring at Iruka, but even in this strange land, there was something comfortingly familiar about it.

_fin_


	2. Interplanetary good vibe zone

_Written for the Mini Bingo Round at KakaIru Fest on Livejournal; the prompt for this was 'Wildcard', so I chose to do 'space cowboys'. _

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Kakashi folded his body into the pilot's pod, grumbling over how his legs fetched up on the curved bottom panel; the chair section which cradled his body obligingly slid back to make room, even as the interface cables squirmed into the receptacles implanted in the back of his neck.

"Sasuke," he said aloud, the heads'-up display flickering into shining blue detail in the air above his eyes. "Do me a favour? The next time Iruka flies you,_please_ put my seat back into the right place."

"Fine," the ship answered in waspish tones. "But stop having sex with him in cargo-bay B. You know I hate shit like that."

"The _one time_-"

"Stop being such a baby, Kakashi," Iruka scolded over the intercom. Kakashi checked the left quadrant of his display, scowling at the glowing red dot which indicated his partner in his own ship, a zippy little model he called Naruto. "It's not like you're _that_ much taller than me, anyway."

"Yeah!" Naruto called out as well. "Sasuke, stop being such a baby!"

"Kakashi," Sasuke said. "Tell that flying bucket of cheap parts that I refuse to talk to him."

"HEY TELL ME YOURSELF YOU SHITTY-"

"Shhh, Naruto," Iruka crooned. Kakashi swallowed at the low tone he used. The sound squirmed its way through subspace and right into Kakashi's groin. "Don't shout, okay?"

"Okay, Iruka!" Naruto said. "But Sasuke is really a crankypants, all the time!"

"I know, I know. Like pilot, like ship."

Kakashi actually stuck out his tongue, and heard Iruka's sweet laughter.

"Are you making childish faces at me, Kakashi?" Iruka asked, and the red dot shifted closer to the center of Kakashi's display, nearer to his position. "You're a big boy, you know."

"That's what you told me last night, too," Kakashi said with a leer and Iruka laughed. Naruto laughed too, but in a manner which indicated he had no idea what the pilots were talking about, and Sasuke sighed so hard that the reverse thrusters shivered under the weight of his annoyance.

"All right," Iruka said, his tone becoming sharper, more brisk. "Work time. Herd's not going to get itself home, is it?"

"Wish that it did." Kakashi blinked, and another layer of objects appeared in his display. Shapes which dwarfed his and Iruka's ships were floating serenely all around them, hundreds of them. To the untrained eye, they appeared to be a collection of aimlessly wandering asteroids. For herders like Kakashi and Iruka, they were obviously whales.

Space-whales. Of the order _Balaenoptera planetule_, the odd, mild-mannered beast were used by humans not for food, but for energy. One single space-whale could be convinced to power three of the large machines which kept the remaining dregs of the human race intact as they fled across the universe in search of a new home. Luckily, space-whales were helpful and kind, albeit a bit _too_ trusting and a lot absent-minded; therefore, herding was more a matter of keeping the cluster together, since a whale would forget what it was doing and float off, making others follow them curiously.

Kakashi turned off the auto-pilot, leaving Sasuke to scan for any pirates. The weight of the ship settled in his mind and Kakashi felt the cool emptiness of space brush against his skin, a side-effect of using the pilot interface. He also felt the heat of Naruto's engines whenever Iruka happened to fly near him. They were a good team, he thought as they moved in a complicated dance around the herd, coaxing those whales which floated in a direction the pilots did not want them to go.

"Hey, Kakashi," Iruka said as he dealt with a smallish whale on the opposite side of the herd.

"Yeah?"

"Cargo-bay B, later?"

"Don't you dare!" Sasuke roared, but Kakashi laughed and laughed.

_fin_

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**AN: **Title from Jamiroquai's 'Space Cowboy'._


	3. Charioteer

_Written for the Mini Bingo Round at KakaIru Fest on Livejournal; the prompt for this was 'Roman Empire'._

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Iruka tried push his way through the press of crowd in a polite but brusque manner, so he could get to his seat. Luckily, his father had paid for a shaded area, and Iruka made his way to it with his head held high.

His father exchanged greetings with the people next to them, making small conversation about the Senate and other affairs of the Empire, but Iruka only had eyes for the open track of the Circus Maximus. The _spina_, that elaborate median in the track, stood in its well-adorned glory, and Iruka bit his lower lip, staring fixedly at the shining columns at either end of the _spina_ as if he could force the _aurigae_ to emerge and race by the power of his thoughts.

Cheers arose, and so increased the thudding of his heart as the charioteers emerged, followed by their chariots and horses. Iruka was almost shivering in his seat, despite the warmth of the day and the folds of his toga, but he was so nervous and excited, he could hardly keep still.

"Kakashi," he breathed when the man he had been waiting for weeks to see stepped out, dust rising around his feet as he walked with his head down. All Iruka could see was the colouring of his hair, completely grey like an old man even though Kakashi was fairly young, barely twenty. Among the generally dark hair and eyes of the Romans, this slave was an interesting anomaly.

"Ah, he of a thousand races," Iruka's father said, patting his arm. "Of course Kakashi will win again for us."

Iruka smiled at him, hiding his nerves. He went back to watching the charioteers prepare, climbing up into the chariots and looping the reigns about their waists. Kakashi leaned over to speak with someone on his team, another charioteer owned by Iruka's father; then looked up in the crowd, grey eyes searching. He adjusted the curved knife that the drivers carried in one hand, and lifted the other one in a respectful salute.

Iruka's father raised a hand in return, and Iruka refrained from lifting his as well. Kakashi belonged to his father, not Iruka...although Iruka's gut said otherwise.

"Will he buy his freedom from you soon, Father?" Iruka blurted and his father gave him a considering, side-long glance.

"Possibly. You must admit that he has earned it."

Iruka nodded, and felt utterly wretched inside. The din was almost unbearable by the time the charioteers lined up, waiting for the signal from the Emperor. Iruka managed to tear his gaze away from the little of Kakashi he could spot behind the spring-loaded gates, to watch their ruler rise to his feet and dangle a lush piece of cloth.

Iruka held his breath; the cloth fell.

The gates snapped open and the chariots shot out, Kakashi bent forward; most of his hair was tucked underneath the helmet the _aurigae_ wore, but wisps of it fluttered in the wind.

_Win,_ Iruka urged in his mind as Kakashi skillfully maneuvered the turn around one of the columns, avoiding the efforts of charioteers from a rival team to smash him into it. Drivers raced hard and perished harder.

_Win_, Iruka thought, thinking of how Kakashi's rough hands gripped at his waist or around his slender wrists, when Iruka snuck from right under his father's nose. _Win...but live._

_fin_


End file.
